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The Call On Lord of the Rings Online
The Beta has been going on for some time now, and for all intents and purposes Lord of the Rings Online has launched. Pre-order players will be able to move their characters to the live game when the title officially lights up on April 24th, and commentators on Massively Multiplayer games have weighed in. Their opinion, generally, is unanimous: buy it. Tobold contributes a full-on review, as does CVG. AFK Gamer doesn't go in for such long-form opinions, but he still has a lot to say. Specifically, Foton comments on the good, the okay, and the bad, as well as a few words on the game's (somewhat out of the ordinary) classes. "[The game is] deep and broad. An MMOG, any MMOG, with its premium box price and its premium subscription prices, needs to offer more activities than: you can kill stuff, and, umm, you can kill other players, and umm, you could check the auctions/trade channel. There's many ways to screw around in this MMOG: Deeds, accomplishments, exploration (easy to outrun higher level mobs), titles, player-made music, engaging quest text, a solid start to the crafting system, MONSTER PLAY!!! There's probably more, but that's all I've tried so far."
The third FA puts it best:
"If you're still playing World of Warcraft and loving it, stick with WoW."
"If you're looking to add to your online gaming options, this game is a fine choice. Beautiful, engaging, deep, different."
"Between online games? Without a doubt, buy it."
That's true. Is it better than WoW? No. Is it worth trying if you're against WoW? Yeah.
I do also have to disagree about how the Tolkeen-y-ness of it all makes it somehow automatically better. Do I really need a deep backstory for my 'kill ten boars' quest? Not really. And because I skipped reading that, I also skipped some thing important. Now I'm lost, and starting not to care. Likewise, after being dumped out of the newbie levels, I have no idea where I am, why I chose to be there, or where I'm supposed to go next. Sure, sure, I've heard the name Bree before, but am I supposed to go there now or later? What's a 'scholar' and what's 'wood lore'? Oh, that can only be crafted by another player? Nice.
What WoW offered was a more distilled version of the online game. Doesn't require much thought but certainly can lead to spending lots of time enjoying it. LOTRO falls short of this, probably on purpose, but somewhat to it's detriment.